Apton's Downfall

So here is the movie I helped make back in the day. I got acting and producing credit. It was a LOT of work and a LOT of fun. Im very proud of this silly little project.

Its about 10 minutes long, and a bit dark. :)

Grandma turns 90!

So this past weekend, a big family group got together and we
celebrated my Grandmas 90th birthday!
Pretty big day if you ask me. This is my mothers mother, Bernice Kutcher. Love her to death, she is a trooper. Even at 90 years old, she is still rockin and rollin.

90 years old, WOW. She was born in 1918. I dont even have any idea what was going on back in 1918, but let me tell ya, Grandma could tell ya!

Up Up and Away!

So a few weeks ago, we were at the pool, swimming around and we were talking about it being close to the end of summer and that the pool was going to be shutting down soon. I mentioned to Izze that if she wanted to go off the High Dive she was going to have to do it pretty soon. I was really just teasing with her, maybe putting a little nugget of a thought in there, but she replied, "Ok, Ill do it now."

And sure enough, she went down to the other end of the pool, climbed up the stairs, walked to the end of the board, and with pretty much no hesitation at all, leaped out. No nose holding, no freakin out, nothing.

and splash!

Then she swam to where I was waiting near the rope dividing the swimming section from the deep end.

Then she said she wanted to go again. And again, and again. She went 4 times before it was time to go.

Such a Daredevil! I love it!

some links

I added some links and lists over there -------=====>
with some info about me, what im doing, what i like, where to find me...

check it out if ya like.
if you know me, cool,
if you dont know me so well,
learn some.

also put a "quote of the day" up above
and some pics of endangered animals down low on the right side.
theyre cute and pretty and need our help to survive
in this world (not that you and I dont need help too!!!)

enjoy.
one thing i would REALLY recommend is the Pandora
music site, its an amazing music site that builds online radio stations to
suit your exact taste! its cool!

Done with Driving!

Well today I starting something that ive wanted to do for a LONG LONG time!

I took public transportation to work.


As many of you know, im pretty much a green freak, environmentalist, tree hugging hippie, but today I followed through with a promise to stop driving my gas guzzling truck everywhere. I did some research and found that i could actually make the Metro system work for me.

I can catch the MetroLink near my house or Izzes bus stop, take a transfer bus (the 97 Delmar, for those of you in the know) and make it to work by 815. It really only takes a few minutes longer than if i had driven myself. I was pretty impressed with the speed and promptness of the mass transit system.

What set this all off? Well yesterday I pulled into the gas station to fill up the tank. Ive been doing a great job of filling up when it gets just under a half a tank, to help prevent gas tank corrosion and other engine problems. The sign at QT said 3.38/ gal. As i was filling the tank, i was thinking to myself, "man, wow, i cant believe that gas is all the way down to 3.38. this is great." then i realized, what the fuck am i talking about. i just paid 45 dollars to put in a half a tank of gas. this is NOT ok. my truch gets about 14-15 mpg in the city. how wasteful. how polluting, how DAMN EXPENSIVE!

it was then and there, at the QT at 170 and the Rock Road that i made my decision to stop driving to and from work and school. while i have not entirely cast off the shackles of foreign oil dependency, i am taking a step in the right direction.

So unless there is some other time-oriented destination i HAVE to make on a work day, I will be doing the mass transit thing monday through friday to and from work and UMSL.

I am very proud of my self and happy that i am doing it. ive even talked to a few people at work who are interested in learning more about this mysterious 'mass transit' thing i have stumbled upon...

for any of you that may be reading this... check out Metro St Louis for some more info and route times and schedules. or send me an email at cjasonwoollard@yahoo.com and ill be happy to help you figure out how to get to where you need to go! I figured it out, you can too!

love the world, it loves you!

j!

Izze's First Day of School

Monday August 18, 2008


This is Tino helping get Izze up and out of bed.

Looks like we exploded a hair bomb again. Gonna need to take care of that business!

Her very first school outfit. She picked out 'Daddy's Princess." Isnt that cute!!!

Having a little breakfast. The most important meal of the day.

Brush-ah Brush-ah Brusha-ah

Daddy doin his best to tame the Hair-Catastrophe!

Time for a few cartoons before its time to leave.

Here we go, off to school!!!

The ride to the bus-stop!

Good thing Mom was there to help fix my hair again!

Olivia says she wants to go to school too!

Lexie and Isabel, ready to learn!

Izze doin here "First Day of School" dance.

Arent we just the cutest!

Oh no, here comes the bus!

Bye! She ran of to the bus and almost forgot hugs and kisses!

And shes gone!

She had a great first day. Made some new friends and even said she learned some things, but she couldnt remember what it was she learned!

Monday, August 11, 2008.....back to work

arrgh, the dreaded day has finally come. i had to go back to work today.
blah, sucks being off for 3 weeks then going back to work, but i guess
it dosent suck as bad as NOT being off for 3 weeks and just going to work
on a regular monday morning.

what a boring day, sitting around all day listenin to the bosses talking about stuff... blah blah blah
not that bad really, i guess it could be worse. and they did buy us breakfast, so thats cool

all in all, its a pretty sweet gig, my job, but i would have loved another day or so off!

get to see my girl izzy for the first time in almost 2 weeks this afternoon. yea, im excited about that!

and i get to go to the damn doctor and hopefully he can do something about the water balloon stuck in my ear... its only been a month and a half now. sheesh

Day 8, Friday August 8th, 2008--> Vicksburg MS and the long ride home...

(edited...)

well, damn, vacation is over. were back home, got in at about 1030 last night. exhausted.

here is our last day of vacation went.

we got up early, ate breakfast, got the truck packed and headed out.

We took a 45 minute drive to Vicksburg MS to experience the Civil War Museum, Battlefield and Memorials. Fortunately most of it was a driving tour. We took a 3 hour tour through the National Military Park aided by a GPS driven video player that told us about pretty much everything we needed to know about the Vicksburg Campaign in the Civil War.

We saw tons of monuments and statues and plaques. Learned a lot about what happened there, from both sides perspective. Learned a lot about the Civil War.

If you are in anyway interested in the Civil War, i think Vicksburg is worth the trip. Goood times.

This is the Illinois Monument. Illinois sent more soldiers to this campaign than any other state. It was a very very cool monument.


Here is the Missouri Monument. Quite a few regiments from Missouri fought in this campaign, for BOTH sides of the battle. Interesting, this Monument honors soldiers of both sides.


Here are some of the cool memorials put up by the state of Ohio. Of them all, Ohio's many monuments were the coolest.

We also got to check out the USS Cairo, one of 7 US iron clad gunboats that fought in the Civil War. There was a small museum and you could go inside part of it.


The last part of the tour was the National Cemetary. Most of the graves (the short square markers) were for unidentified soldiers. Most of the dead from the Civil War were never identified. That is sad to me.



Then we started the trip home. We left Vicksburg at about 1pm, got some lunch back in Jackson then made the tedious and long journey home. It took forever, we had to stop several times for gas (fortunately gas prices down south were pretty good and my truck, recently tuned up, was getting between 18-19 MPG, woot woot!) We ate some french fries and cherry pies (in disguise, guys!!!) in Cape Gireardeau.

So vacation is over, I have to go back to work on Monday and Amanda has to go back tomorrow.... boo hoo... it was a great time, loved it all, cant wait to go on vacation again!

thanks for watching!
as always, see all our pics from Vicksburg over at our Picasa Gallery!